The girl was too young, and far too different from him, to understand his nature, but she was fast realizing that he was not the man he had always seemed to her.
"Oh, if I had only known!" she cried, in deep distress.

"If I had only guessed, I would have been so different! I was always frightened, always afraid of you, since I can remember--I thought you did not care for us and that we always displeased you--how could we know ?" Mendoza lifted one of his hands from the sword hilt, and took hers, with as much gentleness as was possible to him.

His eyes became clear again, and the profound emotion he had shown subsided to the depths whence it had risen.
"We shall never quite understand each other," he said quietly.

"You cannot see that it is a man's duty to do what is right for his children, rather than to sacrifice that in order to make them love him." It seemed to Dolores that there might be a way open between the two, but she said nothing, and left her hand in his, glad that he was kind, but feeling, as he felt, that there could never be any real understanding between them.

The breach had existed too long, and it was far too wide.
"You are headstrong, my dear," he said, nodding at each word.